Personalized health information company K Health has launched a free primary care app. Called K, the app’s AI references a history of diagnoses and treatments to deliver users an insight about how their condition would likely be treated, and can also connect users (in the New York City area) to a network of primary care providers.
Accompanying the launch was also the announcement of $12.5 million in new financing. Backers named by K Health as participants include Mangrove Capital Partners, Lerer Hippeau, Primary Venture Partners, BoxGroup, Max Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Comcast Ventures.
K Health looks to give healthcare consumers a chance to benefit from big data. Using a dataset comprised of more than 1 billion physician notes, lab results, treatments, prescriptions, and other interactions, the company’s AI informs users about how their health issue has been diagnosed and treated in the past. With this, consumers have a rough idea of their issue’s severity, and if necessary can be connected with a primary care physician.
Notably, K Health is pitching itself as an alternative to hit-or-miss online search engine results.
“We all know the feeling of waking up at 2 a.m. and researching our symptoms online even though we know it’ll only make our anxiety skyrocket, ultimately making things worse. Today, if you go online and search for something as simple as a cough, you’ll see millions of results ranging from the common cold to cancer,” Allon Bloch, CEO and cofounder of K Health, said in a statement. “With K, we use real data from millions of people so you discover and understand the medical outcomes of people like you and have informed conversations with your providers about treatment options. It’s about time people had unfettered access to trustworthy health information backed by real doctors as opposed to the generic and confusing information found online.”
Founded in 2016, K Health is currently active in the New York City area. The free, HIPAA-compliant app (without the provider network) is available nationwide on iOS and Android, and intended for use by adults aged 18 to 65 years.
